Biden: I'm the White House optimist

By Byron Tau

11/05/12 05:15 PM EST

Vice President Joe Biden said Monday at a campaign stop that he was known around the White House as a glass half-full kind of guy.

“I know I’m always characterized in the press as the White House optimist. Like I’m the new guy in town. As my grandfather would say, like I’m the guy who fell off the turnip truck," Biden told campaign volunteers a surprise stop at an Obama campaign field office in Roanoke, Va.

Biden, who was joined by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Gov. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), said it was true — that nothing could shake his optimism in America.

"I am more optimistic, my word as a Biden, I am more optimistic about America’s chance in the world today than I have been my whole career," Biden said.

Biden praised Warner for trying to bring the country together to solve the so-called fiscal cliff — the expiration of the Bush tax cuts coupled with automatic spending reductions.

"It’s time to put this hard-edged ideology behind us," Biden said.

"We’re one budget deal away from American preeminence for the next 25 years," Biden said. "It’s literally true. It’s going to take principled compromise. That’s what the president is. He’s principled."

Biden also said that he believed that at the conclusion of election season, the country would come back together — in the same way they came together over the hurricane that slammed into the East Coast last week.

"When this election is over … we’ve got to come together in the same way I’ve watched the president bring everyone together in the aftermath of Sandy, the storm," Biden said.

"Americans have always done best when they’ve come together in a crisis. And I look at these last couple years, the last four years as sort of an aberration. Because I think the fever’s going to break here," Biden said.